Preview: "Christ in the Eucharist" on the Son Rise Morning Show

UPDATE: Postponed to January 5, 2026. We'll turn into an Advent/Christmas series and continue discussing other chapters through the month!

On Monday, December 22, we'll conclude our Advent Series (suggested by Anna Mitchell, who is on maternity leave from the Son Rise Morning Show!) when Matt Swaim and I discuss "Christ in the Eucharist", another chapter in Robert Hugh Benson's The Friendship of Christ. I'll be on a little after 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

The chapter on "Christ in the Eucharist" is the first chapter in "Part II: Christ in the Exterior" (with the verse, "I am the Bread of Life."--John 6:35) in Benson's book and he notes that while some aspects of the Christian's contact with the Friendship of Christ apply to all Christians, this is special to Catholics [and of course, Orthodox Christians]:

a Friendship, it must be remembered, that is open not to Catholics only, but to all who know the Name of Jesus, and indeed, in a sense, to every human being. For our Lord is the "light that enlighteneth every man,"{1} it is His Voice that speaks through conscience, however faulty that instrument may be; it is He, since He is the Only Absolute, who is the dim Ideal Figure discerned standing in the gloom of all hearts who desire Him; it is He whom Marcus Aurelius and Gautama and Confucius and Mahomet, with all their sincere disciples, so far as they were true to themselves, desired, even though they never heard His historical Name of Jesus, or, having heard it, rejected Him, so far as that rejection was without their own fault.

This, then, is the explanation of Non-Catholic, and even of Non-Christian, piety. It would be terrible if it were not so; for in that case we could not claim that our Saviour could be, in any real sense, the Saviour of the world. 

Benson begins his explication of this aspect of the Friendship of Christ with Adoration of Jesus in the Tabernacle (or, in some cases, in the Monstrance):

It is this Presence which causes that astounding difference of atmosphere, confessed even by Non-Catholics, between Catholic churches and all others. So marked is this difference that a thousand explanations have to be framed to account for it. It is the suggestiveness of the single point of light burning there! It is the preternatural artistic skill with which the churches are ordered! It is the smell of ancient incense! It is anything and everything except that which we Catholics know it to be -- the actual bodily Presence of the Fairest of the children of men, drawing His friends to Himself! . . .

It is in this manner, then, that He fulfils that essential of true Friendship, which we call Humility. He places Himself at the mercy of the world whom He desires to win for Himself. He offers Himself there in a poorer disguise even than "in the days of His Flesh,"{3} yet, by the faith and teaching of His Church, by the ceremonies with which she greets His Presence, and by the recognition by His friends, He indicates to those who long to recognize Him and who love Him, and (though they may not know it), that it is He Himself Who is there, the Desire of all nations and the Lover of every soul.

He hints at the atmosphere and architecture of Catholic churches, with the Sanctuary candle, the side altars or chapels, the Holy Water stoups, the clear difference between the Nave (the pews) and the Sanctuary, either with a Communion rail, or steps and definite space between, etc. You can tell if there's been a Funeral Mass celebrated in the church when you enter and scent the fading perfume of the incense.

Benson also doesn't mention some of those "ceremonies", but our external actions as Catholics when we enter a church, knowing that Jesus is in the Tabernacle--even the fact that we use that language is extraordinary!--demonstrate that we know we have entered a sacred Presence. Men take off their hats; some women put on veils or keep on their hats; we bless ourselves with blessed Holy Water and the Sign of the Cross; we genuflect or bow when we enter the nave of the church; we keep silence as much as possible; and we pray! Those are actions that certainly demonstrate that we know something is different here than when we were in the parking lot or even on the sidewalk before we entered the church.

There is also the tradition of the making the Sign of the Cross when we pass by a Catholic church because we know Who is there! 

And these actions can have an impact, as the story of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) indicates: 

One day around 1917, a young Jewish woman, a student and teacher of philosophy, visited Frankfurt Cathedral. She noticed another woman going into the church with a shopping basket in her hands to say a quick prayer.

The Jewish woman, whose name was Edith Stein, was astounded. She said:

“This was something totally new to me. In the synagogues and Protestant churches I had visited people simply went to the services. Here, however, I saw someone coming straight from the busy marketplace into this empty church, as if she was going to have an intimate conversation. It was something I never forgot.”

Because the church wasn't empty! 

Since I've never been a Protestant (and have only been in Protestant churches for family weddings or funerals or some concerts, or as tourist in some Anglican/Episcopalian churches in England* and New York City**), I don't know how they enter their churches and don't remember any particular gestures they made (except men taking off their hats, I suppose) when I was there. And because different Protestant denominations have different kinds of churches or sanctuaries, there's probably a range of responses. Perhaps Matt can address that.

Monsignor Benson then reminds us of the action on the Altar that brings the Presence to the Tabernacle:

He first becomes present on the altar, at the word of His priest, in the form of a Victim. In the Sacrifice of the Mass He presents Himself before the world, as well as before the eyes of the Eternal Father, in the same significance as that in which He hung upon the Cross, performing the same act which He did once for all, the same act by which He displayed that passion of friendship in whose name He claims our hearts, the climax of that Greatest Love of all by which He "laid down His Life for His friends."{4}

Benson then movingly describes how we receive Holy Communion as a deeper way into the Friendship of Christ:

And yet there is one last step of humiliation, even deeper, down which He comes to us -- that step by which our Victim and our Friend descends to be our Food. For, so great is His Love to us that it is not enough for Him to remain as an object of adoration, not enough for Him to lie there as our sin-bearer -- not enough, above all, for Him to dwell within our souls in an interior friendship in a mode apprehensible only to illuminated eyes. But, in Communion, He hurries down that very stairway of sense up which we so often seek to climb in vain. While we are "yet a great way off"{7} He runs to meet us; and there, flinging aside those poor signs of royalty with which we strive to honour Him, leaving there the embroidery and the flowers and the lights, He not merely unites Himself to us, Soul to soul, in the intimacy of prayer, but Body to body in the sensible form of His Sacramental Life. . .

In these excerpts, I think you can see that a reader has to adapt herself to Benson's way of writing and expressing his love for Jesus and his encouragement to respond to the Friendship of Christ. Every reader has to accommodate every author's style of course, but Benson uses the frame of the Friendship of Christ throughout to explore both the interior and exterior lives of Catholics. [Furthermore, I think a reader has to acknowledge and respond to the times and circumstances in which the author wrote; they had an influence on him or her just as much as our times have on writers today. It's just being fair.]

I've suggested to Matt that we use his meditations on the Seven Last Words of Christ for a Lenten series on the Son Rise Morning Show in February/March 2026, because Benson looks at them in "Part Three. Christ in His Historical Life", as "Christ Our Friend Crucified". 

Best wishes for a Blessed Christmas to listeners of the Son Rise Morning Show!

*Westminster Abbey, St. Martin-in the-Fields (for Evensong), the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Saint Barnabas Jericho, and Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford; St. Mary-St. Nicholas (the Anglican church Saint John Henry Newman built) in Littlemore, St. Katherine's in Chiselhampton (closed/redundant), and Dorchester Abbey in Dorchester-on-Thames.

**Saint John the Divine and Saint Thomas on Fifth Avenue

Image Credit: Public Domain: Edith Stein, student at Breslau (1913-1914).

Image Credit/Attribution: Tridentine Mass celebrated by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter

Book Review: Belloc on Charles I AND Oliver Cromwell

The publisher of Mysterium Press kindly sent me review copies of the next set of biographies/character studies by Hilaire Belloc: Charles I (published in 1933) and Cromwell (published in 1934). The books are available in the USA from Os Justi Press.

I finished reading Charles I and am still reading Cromwell. 

What Belloc does in these books--as he did in Wolsey and Cranmer--is not just, or really, biography, but character analysis--, and how, for example, Charles I's character influenced historical events. Belloc also creates word pictures of the the cultural, religious, economic, and political milieu of the era of his subject's life. And he presents his interpretation of the crucial historical events and how, again, the characteristic personalities of the actors involved influenced their actions, strategies, successes, and failures. 

And he does it all without a bibliography and just a few footnotes. So the reader has to trust Belloc, that he is honestly guiding her through these lives and these events. I reviewed the first two volumes from Mysterium Press, Wolsey and Cranmer, previously. And Mysterium is preparing Belloc's works on Charles II and James II--I really look forward to the latter.

But as to Charles I; here is the publisher's blurb:

In an increasingly divided England the wealthy eyed the Crown and plotted revolution. Monarchy went back beyond tradition and was a symbol of the nation's unity: the people were embodied in one man. England was the first to lose it.

Charles Stuart, once a sickly child, manned the tottering throne (which was weakened and despoiled by theft) with tenacity and dignity and was led, outgunned, into a war which ended with his murder. He cleaved to law and precedent and sued for peace and freedom, was tricked by lies and cunning, and then finally beheaded.

Master historian Hilaire Belloc paints a portrait of the principled and rueful monarch who suffered for the people's rights, and whose sense of honour led him and kingship to the block.

And here is a list of the chapters:

1. The Problem
2. The Circumstance
3. Stuart
4. The Formative Years
5. Buckingham
    I. The Spanish Match
    II. The Attack Begins

    III. The Blow
6. Maturity
7. Scotland
8. The Effort for Unity
    I. The Central Effort
    II. The Effort in the Church
    III. The Effort in Ireland
    IV. The Abortive Effort in Scotland
9. The Menace
10. The Crisis
11. The Great Rebellion
12. The Triumph of the Great Rebellion
13. The Hostage    
    I. The Hostage of the Scotch
    II. Hostage of the Parliament
14. The Killing of the King

I'd like to highlight the comment from the blurb "the wealthy eyed the Crown and plotted revolution"** because in the first chapter, "The Problem", Belloc outlines how the Tudor dynasty, especially the reign of Elizabeth I, set up the fall of the monarch to come in the Stuart era. Although she still was the symbol of unity in England, Burghley was the one who truly ruled the country. 

[**I do wonder what Belloc was seeing in the early 1930's that inspired him to write this:

Today all Christendom is hungry for monarchy. In the United States, partly by provision of the Constitution, more by its development in the nineteenth century, the principle of an executive in the hands of one man was preserved. But in Europe it was gradually lost, and replaced by the rule for a few; in practice, of the rich, under the guise of representatives. That experiment is breaking down before our eyes, and monarchy is returning.

(p. 1) Where was he seeing this in Europe in the 1930s? In France? Hindsight's view of any development of "an executive in the hands of one man" in Germany or Italy is chillingly negative. But what did he know or see by 1933 to inspire this sentence?]

When James VI of Scotland came south to England to rule, he tried to wrest that power and authority from the nobility to some extent, although he was influenced by his favorites. When Charles I succeeded his father (because the first heir, Henry, had died), he inherited the same problem, with Buckingham's influence so strong in his adolescence and early reign. Yet, he was determined to rule as the King of England, as more than "a symbol of the nation's unity"; he wanted (as chapter 8 demonstrates) to create and enforce that unity among the three kingdoms in England, Ireland, Scotland--and in the Church of England.

He had developed, because of childhood weakness (rickets!) and slow development of speech, into a young man who had been isolated and presented some characteristics, according to Belloc, of reaction to events in a certain pattern: "fluid against the first onset of attack; then there came a moment when the attack reached something quite different from the first fluid resistance--a stone wall. It was thus that he same to his death. Men were led on to think him pliable; when they came unexpectedly on rigidity, they were infuriated." (p. 47)

But, when he, and his counselors, during the period of his Personal Rule (1629 to 1640) while Parliament was prorogued and the Crown was not able to raise taxes to fund the administration of the kingdom, had a plan for effecting the unity, Charles I demonstrated how determined he could be. With Richard Weston the Earl of Rutland (and a Catholic), his treasurer, William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury; William Noy, his Attorney General; and Thomas Wentworth, privy counsellor and Lord Deputy of Ireland, Charles I had a plan for creating that unity mentioned above.

As adept as Belloc is in political and economic analysis, he also excels as an interpreter of military strategy--it's important to note that his study of the French Revolution he dedicates a long chapter, with maps, to the battles of the French Revolution--and he demonstrates that aptly in this book too. [Please note that in my review of Belloc's The French Revolution, linked above, I am quite willing to disagree with Belloc when I think it's necessary. He fails entirely in that book to reckon with the anti-Catholicism of the French Revolution--while he's quite ready to acknowledge its presence in England etc. in his studies of Charles I and Cromwell!]

Throughout, Belloc's prose, with its clarity of expression, balancing brevity with comprehensiveness and detail, provides an incredible model. As a voice of authority, it's so clear that it does inspire the reader's confidence in Belloc's interpretation of character and events. 

I appreciate Mysterium Press making these books available in handsome hardback editions and recommend this addition to the series highly.

Image Credit (Public Domain): King Charles I after original by van Dyck

Image Credit (Public Domain): 1915 portrait Belloc    

Preview: "Christ in the Church" on the Son Rise Morning Show

On Monday, December 15, we'll continue our discussion of selections from Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's The Friendship of Christ. I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show with Matt Swaim a little after 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central and we'll look at the chapter "Christ in the Church." Listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

I selected this chapter to talk about because of this sentence:

When a convert begins his Catholic life, or when one who has been a Catholic from the cradle wakes to a deliberate consideration of what his religion means, it is enough to believe all that the Church expressly teaches, and to conform his life to that teaching: just as, in the first stage of a new acquaintanceship, it is enough to be polite and deferential and to refrain from offence.

When I talk to Matt Swaim, he is conversant, as a convert and as one working with converts in OCIA and The Coming Home Network, with the attitude of the convert. As a cradle Catholic, baptized as an infant and taught in Catholic schools in a religiously observant family, I know that I woke up "to a deliberate consideration" of what my Catholic religion means--and I know exactly when, in January of 1979, when I discovered Saint John Henry Newman and whole different, "adult" way of being a Catholic.

We must remember that Benson was speaking and writing for his British congregations in a country where Catholics were still a mistrusted minority in the early 20th century and therefore he speaks and writes to them so they can explain the Catholic way of understanding "the Friendship of Christ" as well as to understand it better themselves. Thus, he describes friendship with His Church as a necessary part of being friends with Christ, at first simply by accepting her teaching and order.

But Benson doesn't think that's enough; that's just the first step:

As the relationship deepens, it is absolutely necessary, if relations are not to be marred, to begin to conform not only words and actions, but thoughts; and even more than thoughts -- instincts and intuitions. Two really intimate friends know -- each of them, without a question or word of explanation -- what would be the judgment of the other upon a new situation. Each knows the likes and dislikes of the other, even though they may not be expressed in words.

Now this is precisely what a Catholic soul must aim at. If friendship with Christ in the Church is to be real -- and without this knowledge of Him, as has been seen, our relations with Him cannot be at all adequately what He intends -- it must extend not only to scrupulous external obedience and formulated acts of faith, but to an interior way of looking at things in general; an instinctive attitude; an intuitive atmosphere . . .

While Benson does not use exactly these words, he is echoing Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who urged his fellow Jesuits to “think and feel with the Church” and like Saint Joan of Arc, who replied to a question at her trial, "About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing, and we shouldn't complicate the matter." Saint John Henry Newman, in an Anglican Parochial and Plain Sermon, "Unreal Words" reminds us that one "cannot frame a language for himself", and that while it's "not an easy thing to learn that new language which Christ has brought us . . . [we must] try to learn this language."

The Catholic Church's language of liturgy and liturgical seasons can be hard to learn: the changes in vestment colors, how the "Alleluia" and the "Gloria" and the Creed come and go depending on the season or the level of the feast, how the decorations in the church change. These are not unimportant elements of the language of our devotion and our being in rhythm with the liturgical year.

Benson acknowledges that those outside the Catholic Church can find this language too structured, but he notes that this is what makes a Catholic experience that interior friendship of Christ in the exterior:

Hence a certain "friendliness" with the Church is not difficult. No Catholic, for example, who even attempts to practise his religion, is ever altogether homeless or an exile. He feels, not only as a subject of a kingdom or an empire may feel, protected by his country's flag -- but as one who is in the society of a friend. He wanders into churches abroad, not only to visit the Blessed Sacrament, not only to reassure himself as to the hour for mass, but to get into the company of a mysterious and comforting Personality, driven by an instinct he can scarcely explain. He is perfectly reasonable in doing so; for Christ, his Friend, is there, present in that centre of humanity whose members are His.

During the seasons of Advent and Lent, with additional devotions and charitable efforts in our parishes, if you're active in your parish, you'll find yourself more there in church or in the parish hall than at other times of the year. And you go because it's another way to be in His Presence, praying Solemn Matins at 10 p.m. on the Vigil of the feast of the Immaculate Conception; listening to and joining in the Lessons and Carols; attending Penance services, Parish Missions, the Stations of the Cross on Fridays in Lent, and so on.

As Benson concludes:

Once grasp, therefore, that the Catholic Church is Christ's historical expression of Himself: once see in her Eyes the Divine glance, and through her face the Face of Christ Himself: once hear from her lips that Voice that speaks always "as one having authority";{12} and you will understand that no nobler life is possible for a human soul than to "lose herself"{13} this sense in that glorious Society which is His Body; no greater wisdom than to think with her; no purer love than that which burns in Her Heart who, with Christ as her Soul, is indeed the Saviour of the world.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us!

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Preview: "Christ in the Saint" on the Son Rise Morning Show

On Monday, December 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, we'll continue our Advent series on the Son Rise Morning Show with Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's reflections on "Christ in the Saint" from The Friendship of Christ.

I'll be on the air with Matt Swaim (Anna Mitchell is on maternity leave after the birth of her son) at my usual time about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central; please listen live here or catch the podcast later here. 

Since it is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on December 8--a Holy Day of Obligation for Catholics--we'll focus on Benson's comments about the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, in this segment.

In the first section of The Friendship of Christ, Benson focuses on the interior relationship; in the second, on the exterior, with the argument that we want to respond to Jesus's desire to be our friend in every way that He reaches out to us:

We pass now to consider another avenue along which Christ approaches us and seeks our friendship; another mode, and, indeed, other gifts which He conveys to us. It is not enough to know Christ in one manner only: we are bound, if we desire to know Him on His own terms and not on ours, to recognize Him under every form which He chooses to use. It is not enough to say, "Interiorly He is my Friend, therefore I need nothing else." It is not loyal friendship to repudiate, for example, the Church or the Sacraments as unnecessary, without first inquiring whether or no He has instituted these things as ways through which He designs to approach us.

So Benson goes on to review several of those forms "He chooses to use" starting with The Eucharist, The Church, and The Priest before commenting on "Christ in the Saint". In that chapter he begins with Mary, the Mother of God as he examines how Christ is present to us in "Personal Holiness or Moral Sanctity":

I. When we examine the Catholic religion as it actually surrounds us, we find that the Saints, and, above all, Mary, Queen of Saints, are vital and essential elements in the system. It is certainly true to say that no person born of human parents has exercised and exercises such an influence on the human race as Mary, the Mother of our Lord -- or (to put it yet more gently) that no influence is ascribed to any such person as is ascribed to Mary.

As any student of art (East and West) and choral and classical music knows, Mary has inspired countless paintings, stained glass windows, icons, sculptures, hymns, chants, antiphons, poems, churches, cathedrals, etc., etc.:

It is impossible to grasp with the imagination what her Personality has meant to the human race -- as is illustrated by the countless services in her honour, the rosaries recited for her intercession and for her praise, the invocations of her name, -- in fact, the place she occupies as a whole in the human consciousness. Her name runs through Christian history as inextricably as the Holy Name of Jesus itself. There is not a circumstance in life, not a situation, not a crisis -- we might almost say, not a joy or sorrow -- in which, at one time or another, Mary has not been called to take a part.

. . . To the Catholic mind the thought of Mary is united with the thought of Jesus, as inextricably as the two natures in Christ; since, after all, one of those natures come from her.

 In response to those who object that Catholics are "worshipping" Mary as we worship Jesus, Benson replies:

It is unnecessary to answer this at any length, since every Catholic knows perfectly well that all the worship and honour given to Mary are given with the sole object of uniting the worshipper with that "blessed fruit of her womb,"{1} whom she extends to us in every image, whether as the Child of Joy or as the Man of Sorrows. It is only those who are doubtful, or at least doctrinally vague, as to the absolute Deity of Christ, who can conceive it even as possible for an intelligent Christian to confound Christ with His Mother, or to imagine the Creator and the Creature as standing even in the remotest competition one with the other.

Then he demonstrates how Mary is always with Jesus at crucial moments, from His Incarnation in her womb to the Cross:

First, then, when we turn to the Gospel -- that ground-plan of God's designs for mankind -- we find that, according to scale, so to speak, Mary occupies a place of dignity beside Jesus wonderfully proportionate to her place in the more explicit Catholic system; since, whenever Her Son comes to a moment of human crisis, whenever a new or startling and fundamental fact is to be revealed concerning Him, Mary is at His side, and is presented, so to speak, in a significant attitude.

Benson makes the comparison between Eve in the Garden of Eden and Mary in Nazareth: 

"The angel Gabriel was sent from God . . . to a virgin . . . and the virgin's name was Mary."{2} In such words the first actual step of the Incarnation itself is described, corresponding in an extraordinary manner to that first actual step in the process of the Fall. In both alike we see an Immaculate Maiden, a supernatural messenger, and a choice offered upon which the future shall depend. In the one case Eve's disobedience and love of self was preliminary to the sin by which the race fell; in the other, Mary's obedience and love of God was preliminary to the process by which the same race was redeemed.

Then Benson continues with more examples from the Gospels: 

Again -- as Christ lies in Bethlehem, receiving for the first time as God-made-man the adoration of mankind, it is Mary who kneels beside Him; as Christ through thirty years "learns obedience"{3} as the Son of Man, it is from Mary that He takes His orders. As He steps out into the world to begin that transformation of things common into things divine, it is at Mary's prayer that, in token of His Mission, He turns the water into wine. As He closes His ministry by that yet more amazing miracle to which all other of His signs pointed forward -- His own Death upon Calvary -- "there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother"{4} -- as, centuries before, Eve, the mother of the fallen, had stood by that Tree of Death by which the First Adam died. Whether then, we turn to Tradition -- that imperishable memory and mind of the Church from which she brings out continually "things new and old"{5} -- or to the written record of that Life during which her whole treasure was committed to her care; in either case we find alike that Mary walks always with Jesus -- that when we see Him as a new-born Child, we can only find Him "with Mary His Mother";{6} when we adore Him as man, obedient as He would have us obedient, it is in Her house that He lives; when we creep to the Cross to wash ourselves in His Precious Blood, Mary is looking at us from His side. For history too, tells us the same, that where Mary is loved, Jesus is adored; where Mary, the Mother of His Humanity, is despised or slighted, the light of His Divinity goes out. . . .

Benson concludes this chapter--without using the words--reflecting on the Communion of Saints:

Here, then, Christ comes to us, extending Himself in that Court of His friends who stand about His Throne. Upon His Right Hand stands the Queen in "gilded clothing," herself a" King's daughter";{10} and on every side, in their orders, those who have learned to call Him Friend, conceived and born in sin, yet who "through many tribulations"{11} have first restored and then retained that image in which they were made, and have so identified themselves with Christ that it is possible to say of them that although they live, it is "now not (they); but Christ that liveth in them."{12}

To seek to separate Christ from His friends, to banish the Queen Mother from the steps of Her Son's throne, lest she should receive too much love or homage -- this is a strange way to seek the Friendship of Him who is their All!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

All Holy Men and Women, pray for us!

Image of the Holy Family, Stained Glass from Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Colwich, Kansas (C) Stephanie A. Mann 2016 and 2025

Image Credit (Public Domain): Immaculate Mary, Juan Sánchez Cotán (Compare to the cover image of the December issue of Magnificat by the same artist)